Slashdot videos: Now with more Slashdot!

View

Discuss

Share

We've improved Slashdot's video section; now you can view our video interviews, product close-ups and site visits with all the usual Slashdot options to comment, share, etc. No more walled garden! It's a work in progress -- we hope you'll check it out (Learn more about the recent updates).

Seems likely to me that Apple has had enough of crappy SSD controllers causing problems on its notebooks (especially the Air) and wants to finally get it done right. It could also be a competitive advantage to be the company with the best drive controllers.

Poor bad block management causing slowdowns over time even if you have trim enabled. Also stuttering during write operations. It was a huge problem on the first generation Airs.

The first generation Airs used hard drives, not SSDs. There was an SSD option, but it cost $1000 to go from an 80GB HDD to a 64GB SSD.

Apple never used the SSD controllers which had stutter problems etc. They've always done a lot more storage qualification than your average bear, so they waited out the bad early problems and worked with vendors to get controller/firmware combos qualified before hopping in the pool.

This acquisition is not about Macs. Apple doesn't need to make its own standalone high-perfo

Actually it makes the problem worse. If you can pick any manufacturer you like then you can test all the available chipsets and choose the best, and if later on it turns out to have a flaw you can switch to another fairly quickly. If you are making your own chips you are stuck with them, and just because it's Apple doesn't mean they will magically be immune to mistakes.

For Apple, it wouldn't be a problem so much as it must be for Anobit. The thing w/ fabless companies is that during allocation times, they are @ the mercy of their fab suppliers, who normally prioritize the heavy hitters, like nVidia, Broadcom, or Qualcomm. Think of companies like TSMC, UMC, Global Foundries, et al. Of course, if the customer is Apple, they won't have problems getting dedicated supply from such suppliers, but someone like Anobit definitely would. And if they are a critical part of Apple

Yes, but then Apple will have to start building new fab plants as the tech becomes obsolete. There's a reason why most companies, like Apple, buy all their tech from elsewhere. It costs a bloody fortune to cycle plant tech, and the reason why we have so few players. It cost billions to build the buggers.

Well, Apple has the billions to spend, and this way, they can take the technology in the direction they want to go, instead of having to go the way the SS industry decides to go. Fabulous decision, IMHO.

Yes, but then Apple will have to start building new fab plants as the tech becomes obsolete.

Yeah, I'm not sure it would make sense for Apple to buy an entire fab unless they were using 100% of the capacity of one of their suppliers. Then they are paying for fab upgrades one way or another - either through the cost of the sub-contracted parts or directly in their own fab.

First they just opened a new factory in Texas, now in Israel, both out of China (in case you did not read the fine print), so, is this the new trend now? No more "cheap" chips? Or maybe they are becoming too expensive? Or maybe Apple knows something that we don't? Like, China is friend no more.....

China doesn't tend to make things like chips. Those are almost all made somewhere else. China is more of a "final assembly" kind of space. You send them over the parts, they build the final product for cheap.

Usually What's outsourced to China is anything that requires manual labor. If you need people to do it, and said people don't need to be engineers, then there's a good chance that you'd get the most bang for your buck in China.

This is quickly changing, however. Chinese companies are establishing themselves as brands, and they themselves are using up the workforce. The pendulum is starting to shift the other way -- Chinese companies are setting up "beachheads" in Europe, and are even outsourcing jobs to cheaper countries.

Germany and Japan manage to have successful manufacturing sectors because they are not in a race to the bottom with China. Their stuff costs a bit more but is also better quality and locally produced (some people care about that).

Since the other people are paying lots of money to do so, they certainly do. I work for a fabless semiconductor company, whose current chip is being manufactured by SMIC. It costs many hundreds of thousands of dollars to get them to make out chips.

They are the biggest in China, but that isn't saying much. You want big? Look at TSMC, who's IP SMIC ripped off. It's also only older tech. 45nm is the smallest they do. That's fine, but not for cutting edge products.

Plus while there's a decent market in fabs-for-order, there's a massive market in semi-conductor companies that fab their own stuff. Intel, IBM, TI, Samsung, and so on all fab their own stuff in whole or in part.

China is not big in the chips industry, at all. They do some, but nothing compared

China doesn't tend to make things like chips. Those are almost all made somewhere else. China is more of a "final assembly" kind of space. You send them over the parts, they build the final product for cheap.

My guess is that China thinks they do. Seeing as they believe Taiwan is still a part of China. I still think it's hilarious the West even calls it Taiwan when China calls it properly Taipei.

There are plenty of chip assembly plants in China, looking at the PCB in front of me now, I see 3 out of 6 ICs on the board have "China" printed on them, the other 3 don't say any country's name so could be made anywhere. What they may not be doing much of in China of is wafer fabrication - this generally requires higher tech factories, and tends to be kept in US, Europe and Japan where the risk of leaks is lower.

Coupled with their ARM CPU developments, I think Apple is attempting to remove their dependency on component makers such as Samsung (or at least gain some IP to use as leverage). I wouldn't be surprised if Apple starts some Flash-related patent wars in a few more years.

I think you have a good point there. Samsung gets a lot of business from Apple as a supplier of flash chips. And yet at the same time they are ripping off Apple's device designs. Apple must be quite keen to ditch them as a supplier as soon as is possible.

I think you have a good point there. Samsung gets a lot of business from Apple as a supplier of flash chips. And yet at the same time they are ripping off Apple's device designs. Apple must be quite keen to ditch them as a supplier as soon as is possible.

Apple's actually got more power over Samsung than Samsung over Apple.

Samsung just opened a new fab to make chips for Apple. Apple is Samsung's #1 customer these days. The loss of Apple's business would immediately put Samsung in a bad spot - idle fabs lose

They design, they don't fab. Just like PA Semi which Apple bought earlier. Apple designs products and product components but then outsources their manufacture. They aren't interested (so far) in owning fabrication plants. They can be more agile if they can switch manufacturers as their requirements change.

As a typical open source advocated, I am shaking my fist in anger at how successful Apple is with its proprietary technology. Why are people giving that company money when they could be using a Linux machine and playing Tux Racer instead of stupid Angry Birds??? What makes me more mad is that I've been practicing being irate at Microsoft for so long that when Apple suddenly rushed to success overnight, it's made me angry that I did nothing with my life during the 2000s except comb my exquisite neckbeard and ponytail. Doesn't Apple know that it could make more money by giving away its software and hardware for free and then charge for services? SO ANGRY RIGHT NOW AT OTHER PEOPLE'S SUCCESS. GRRRR! Everyone on Slashdot is with me, right? All together now: GRRRR!

Apple uses a mix of closed and open source wares. Come to think of it, so do I on my Linux box (vmware workstation, flash, windows codecs, nvidia driver). I'd rather they all be open source, but things are working well enough. I don't have a religious rage that theings aren't 100% the way I wish they were. Of course, you have proprietary softwares in your computer too (bios, embedded roms, etc.) and in many of your household appliances and vehicles.

Mach is open, the userland tools are all open, and Darwin was open for a while, though nobody demonstrated any interest in it.

OSX is like having a Linux desktop without the Linux issues, and Apple embraces open technologies and follows standards whenever possible, which in some cases is actually more than Linux does (SUS and POSIX compliance, for example).

Weren't Anobit the folks who developed the technology to make MLC flash work reliably? That's going to become critically important as people increase the density of the arrays (for SSD drives etc) - and from the way Apple has been behaving recently, I'm not sure they'd be willing to share it with Intel, Sandisk and so on.

wouldn't it be cheaper to hire domestic flashers from the ranks of the homeless and give them overcoats or raincoats? or do they want to insure their flashers all have circumcised peckers when they expose themselves?

Good move on Apple's part- buy the developer and retain the patents for anything new and novel coming out of there, but continue to outsource the fabrication. It's everything that was good about vertical integration, minus the bad (costs of retooling, slow response times). Couple this with locked in deals with manufacturers and Apple is setting itself up for an even stronger market domination. Say what you want about them (evil, controlling, walled-garden, doo-doo heads), they're not stupid over there. And keep in mind, the company is now run by the guy who was in charge of the supply chain. We're gonna be hearing alot more stories like this in the near future. Love them or hate them, Apple is running their business very very right.

Not even as a fabless designer. So no, Apple doesn't use NAND flash from Anobit in any current devices.

Anobit makes NAND flash technology. Apple uses NAND which sues some of this technology in their current devices.

Additionally, I work with NAND engineers at Apple every day and so far they all deny this acquisition is even happening. They might be lying to me, as that is part of what secrecy is, but so far it looks like the deal isn't real.

Dear Mr. Coward,
Where do you get this information?
As an Israeli, who has served in the army, who votes in democratic elections and is able to criticize his government freely, who shares his cubicle at work with an Israeli Arab, who also enjoys civil rights and liberties and votes for his representatives, and as a Jew who carries the stain of history on his family's story, please tell me where is this ethnic cleansing you speak of?
There is nothing I would rather wish for than the end of the occupation of the west bank, especially as a reserve soldier, but if it was so simple it would have been over a long time ago. There is no such thing as an evil nation, that's just racist. We are people. When I get called for duty, I spend most my time riding in a jeep in which the commander is a lawyer, the driver is a youth council, the medic is a magician, and I'm an electronic engineer. This isn't an ego bunch, and know for a fact that there isn't an army in the world that shows as much restraint as we do.
And back to the topic, from a tech company perspective, its smart to set up a development center in Israel. It worked for Intel, IBM, TI, Google, Microsoft, HP and the list goes on.

Currently I believe the ethnic cleansing is at its most obvious in the capital city of Jerusalem with a little in the West Bank, but historically speaking the entire country was founded on systematic ethnic cleansing and some members of the Knesset would quite like to see it make a more widespread return.

There is nothing I would rather wish for than the end of the occupation of the west bank, especially as a reserve soldier, but if it was so simple it would have been over a long time ago.

The simple fact of the matter is that Israeli governments since it began wanted it to continue and have systematically made sure it won't be by building increasing numbers of Jewish settlements deeper and d

Currently I believe the ethnic cleansing is at its most obvious in the capital city of Jerusalem with a little in the West Bank, but historically speaking the entire country was founded on systematic ethnic cleansing and some members of the Knesset would quite like to see it make a more widespread return.

You swing around the phrase "ethnic cleansing" as a political slogan while ignoring its content.
I can accept 'occupation' as a description, but there is a significant lack of cleansing involved.
Israel receives disproportional bad press, whilst so many terrible bad things go on on a daily basis in the world with literally no coverage at all.
And again, you saying Israel is just racist is the most racist thing of all. The fact that an Israeli newspaper has the sort of article you link to proves that.
Thin

A. No it isn't. By using the phrase "ethnic cleansing" you are trying to create an emotional response so that the reader/listener creates a comparison between Israel and the likes of Congo, Kosovo and Darfur. This isn't the case.
B. The heavy military presence in the west bank is a product of the 2000 Intifada. The Jewish settlements have been in place long before that. The reason there is a 'closed military zone' is that its the only thing keeping the order there. While settling has been frozen, and some s

There is a reason importing your own population into occupied territory is prohibited by the 4th Geneva Convention, because it amounts to ethnic cleansing. The West Bank has been occupied since 1967, not 2000. There is no freeze, Tel Aviv just authorized another 1000 housing units on occupied territory, which was condemned [fco.gov.uk] by the UK, France, Germany, and Portugal.

The purpose of the entire settlement enterprise, and Zionism itself, is to take the land without the people, which is ethnic cleansing. It's wh

In any case, the convention that you cite is inapplicable because Judea and Samaria are not "occupied". Occupation in international law refers to the control by one state of territory belonging to another. Even when Israel fully controlled Judea and Samaria, there was no occupation because Judea and Samaria were not part of any state. Legally, since the Arabs rejected the 1948 partition, Judea and Samaria are unresolved Mandate territory and

The Israeli government is systematically stripping non-Jewish residents of Jerusalem of their residence and forcing them from their homes as a method of making it Jewish. It's a fairly slow process, but it's inexorable and has been going on for decades [sfgate.com]. If that doesn't count as ethnic cleansing, the systematic, planned and violent forcing out of non-Jewish Palestinians from their villages during the formation of Israel, with the odd massacre to encourage the rest, followed by the demolition of those village

I was in Jerusalem two years ago. Saw lots of Arabs. Bought a T-shirt from one in the Old City. Didn't see any cleansing going on.
And speaking of getting "deeper and deeper into the West Bank", you do realize that we are talking about a strip of land about 10 miles wide, do you not?

Nonsense. Jerusalem has had a Jewish plurality since statistics became available, which is 1860. The only ethnic cleansing that has taken place in modern times in Jerusalem was in 1948 when the Arab Legion captured the eastern portion of the city, which includes the Jewish Quarter, and expelled all of the surviving Jews, after which it systematically destroyed all but one of the more than 50 synagogues. Since the liberation of Jerusalem in 1967, so-called Jewish "settlement" has consisted merely of the recl